1886 Charleston, SC Earthquake Shakes Oxford, NC
Article appeared in the Torchlight (Oxford Newspaper) on September 7, 1886
TERRIBLE EARTHQUAKE.
Nearly Half of United States Experiences the Shock
CHARLESTON IN RUINS.
Many People Wounded and Killed—Scenes Unparalled in this Country.
The eastern part of the United States experienced the most severe earthquake shocks in the history of our country last Tuesday night. They were felt as far South as Jacksonville, Fla., as far North as New York and as far West as Chicago. The centre of the disturbance seems to have been at Summerville, South Carolina, a prosperous little village, which was almost totally destroyed. Charleston, twenty two miles from Summerville suffered terribly, two-thirds of the houses in the city being rendered uninhabitable. Nearly fifty persons were killed and more than a hundred wounded. Some buildings in Augusta, Columbia and Savannah, Georgia, were wrecked. The shock was less in force the further removed from Summerville.
While the earth quaked violently in every part of North Carolina, the damage was very slight. At Raleigh, Charlotte and Wilmington some chimneys were knocked down. It is reported that a house at High Point was demolished.
Charleston and Summerville were not heard from until a late hour Wednesday morning. Terrible rumors of the total annihilation of those two places were rife. Grave fears were entertained. Sunken roadbed prevented approach by railroad. Telegraphic communication was cut off until 9 o’clock, when one wire belonging to the Southern Telegraph Company was opened. Then came the dispatches outlining the work of destruction and giving heartrending accounts of the suffering of the people. The first telegrams were substantially as follows:
Charleston, SC, September 1—Shortly after 10 o’clock at night an earthquake of such violence as has never before been experienced in this city occurred. The whole city was shaken violently, causing a heavy loss of life and doing immense damage to property. The city is one mass of wreck. Streets are completely blocked with debris of ruined houses, telegraph poles, trees, wires, etc. Vehicles of any kind cannot be driven through the streets, while pedestrianism is both dangerous and difficult. The people have been in the dark since the occurrence of the first shock, wringing their hands and crying aloud to God to save them. Whole families passed the night huddled together in open spaces, some of them praying continuously and imploring divine intercession. Opinions differ as to the number of shocks which occurred. Some assert that there were only two, while others are positive that there were three. A great many insist that there were even more. However this may be, the first was the most severe and did the most damage.
At 8:25 precisely this morning another wave swept over the city. It was not destructive, all the destruction having been done at 9:55 last night. The city is a complete wreck. St. Michael’s Church and St. Phillip’s, two of the most historic churches in the city, are in ruins, so is the Hiberman Hall, the police station, and many other public buildings. Fully two –thirds of the residences in the city are uninhabitable, being wrecked either totally or partially. It is impossible at this time to give a correct estimate of the casualties. It is expected that between fifty and one hundred persons have been killed and several hundred wounded. At the time of the first shock fires broke out in two different places in the city. About twenty houses were destroyed by fire. Scarcely one hundred houses in the city are occupied at this time, the people being all encamped in the open places. All the stores are closed and a scarcity of provisions is feared—not from want of provisions, but because no one can be got to enter the stores to sell them.
There are not a half dozen tents in the city, and the women and children are experiencing great privations in consequence. As night approaches most heads of families are trying to construct tents out of bed sheets, spare awnings and any other material that comes to their hands. The sun is about to set on another night of horror for poor Charleston. Heaven only knows what it may bring forth. Without any other violent shock of earthquake it is calculated that at least three-fourths of the city will have to be rebuilt entirely if the houses are to be inhabited.
Columbia, SC, September 1. –Summerville, twenty-two miles from Charleston was nearly destroyed by an earthquake last night. The passenger train from Columbia to Charleston was thrown from the track near Summerville last night and the engineer and fireman killed. The passengers on the wrecked train and those on this morning’s train, including one lineman, have not yet reached Charleston.
We make the following extracts from a vivid description of earthquake written by one of the editors of the News-Courier:
“Then the long roll deepened and spread into an awful roar that seemed to pervade at once the troubled earth and the still air above the ground. The tremor was now a rude, rapid quiver that agitated the whole lofty, strong-walled building as though it was being shaken by the hand of an immeasurable power, with intent to tear its joints asunder and scatter its stones and bricks abroad, as a tree casts its o’er ripened fruit before the breath of the gale. There was no intermission in the vibration of the mighty subterranean engine. From the first to the last it was a continuous jar, only adding force at every moment, and as it approached, and reached the climax of its manifestation it seemed for a few terrible seconds that no work of human hands could possible survive the shock. The floors were heaving under foot, the surrounding walls and partitions visibly swayed to and fro, the crash of failing masses of stone and brick and mortar was heard overhead, and without the terrible roar filled the ears, and seemed to fill the mind and heart, dazing perception, bewildering thought, and for a few panting breaths, or while you held your breath in dreadful anticipation of immediate and cruel death, you felt that life was already past, and waited for the end as the victim with his head on the block awaits the fall of the uplifted axe.
It is not given to many men to look in the face of the destroyer and yet live, but it is little to say that the group of strong men who shunned the experience above faintly described will carry with them the recollection of that supreme moment to their dying day. A sudden rush was simultaneously made to endeavor to attain the open air and flee to a place of safety; but before the door was reached all reeled together to the tottering wall and stopped, feeling that hope was vain, that it was only a question of death within the building or without to be buried by the sinking roof or crushed by the toppling walls. The uproar slowly died away in seeming distance. The earth was still, and oh, the blessed relief of that stillness, but how rudely the stillness was broken. As we dashed down the stairway and out into the street already on every side arose the shrieks and cries of pain and fear, the prayers and wailings of terrified women and children, commingled with the hoarse shouts of excited men. Out in the street the air was filled to the height of the houses with a whitish cloud of dry, stifling dust from the lime and mortar and shattered masonry, which falling upon the pavement and stone roadway had been reduced to powder. Through this cloud, dense as fog, the gas-lights flickered dimly, shedding but little light, so that you stumbled at every step over the piles of brick or became entangled in the lines of telegraph wires that depended in every direction from their broken supports. On every side were hurrying forms of men and women bareheaded, partially dressed, some almost nude and many of whom were crazed with fear or excitement. Here a woman is supported, half fainting, in the arms of her husband, who vainly tries to soothe her, while he carries her into the open space at the street corner, where present safety seem assured; there a woman lies on the pavement with upturned face and outstretched limbs, and the crowd passes her by for the time, not pausing to see whether she be alive or dead.
Again, far along the street, and up from the alleys always that lead into it on either side, is heard that chorus of wailing and lamentation which, though it had not ceased, was scarcely noticed a moment before. It is a dreadful sound, the sound of helpless, horror-stricken humanity, old and young, the strong and the feeble alike, where all are so feeble, calling for help from their fellow creatures, and raising their anguished voices in petition to heaven for mercy, where no human aid could avail. It is not a scene to be forgotten when once it has been witnessed, and when the witness has shared all its danger, and feels all its agony.”
Charleston, SC, September 4—At 9:30 o’clock tonight another earthquake shock was felt in this city. The sensation today is the falling of a shower of pebbles. The first fall was at 7:30 o’clock this morning, and the second at about 11 o’clock. There are morsels of flint among them, and all are abrated and worn by the action of water.
City Assossor William A. Kelly says that the loss in Charleston by the earthquake will readily reach $10,000,000. The taxable property aggregates $22,000,000.
The earth around Charleston and Summerville is depressed and cracked in many places, and sand, mud and water are thrown from the fissures.
There are conflicting statements as to the origin of the earthquake disturbance, but it is purely guess work. Many scientists are making observations. An earthquake occurred in Greece August 28th, destroying three towns and killing 600 people, and it is thought it extended to this country, crossing the Atlantic Ocean in seventy two hours.
The latest news is to the effect that the citizens of Charleston are living outdoors in tents furnished by the US Government. Summerville is almost deserted.
EARTHQUAKES GENERALLY.
Of earthquakes, their causes, etc. the News-Observer says editorially:
Earthquakes have occurred from time immemorial and in all parts of the world, but violent and destructive movements of the earth’s crust have been confined, during the historical period, to certain belts or regions, while other regions have been visited only by moderate vibrations of the earth’s surface.
The regions where volcanoes are still active are liable to the former. Those countries, like the eastern parts of the United States, where there are no volcanoes, have not been known before this to have been involved in any but slight disturbances. In California they have been frequent, but usually not destructive. In Mexico frequent and destructive. In Spain, Greece, the islands of the Mediterranean, they have been terrible in their effects, and the same in regard to parts of South America; and there is reason to believe that parts of the Pacific Ocean are likewise to be embraced in the earthquake zone.
Before the year AD 1600, we have only occasional records of devastating earthquakes, but from AD 1606 to AD 1842, between 6,000 and 7,000 have been recorded.
In 1876 there were recorded 104. Before the opening of this century, they were not closely studied, but during the past forty years there has grown up a regular branch of scientific study pertaining to these convulsions, called by the scientists Seismology. But as yet no definite results have been attained in tracing their cause or origin. In general it is broadly stated that an earthquake is a vibratory motion propagated through the solid mass of the earth, much in the same way that sound is propagated by vibrations in the atmosphere. But the origin of the force remains undetermined. Probably several distinct causes should be recognized. Volcanic action is doubtless due to one of the causes that produce earthquakes; but volcanic action does not always accompany them. One hypothesis is that the interior of the earth is a liquid nucleus and the surface is but a thin crust covering it.
Waves generated in the liquid interior might produce the vibratory motion of the earth’s crust. This theory, however, is not held by some of the most intelligent physicists.
Some again suggest that the vibrating motion is imparted by the jar occasioned by a violent rupture being due to the expansion of deeply seated masses of mineral substances, consequent upon either increased or diminished temperature. Steam has always figured largely in such theories, it being supposed that water, finding its way through the earth’s crust, might reach highly heated rocks and remain in aa super-heated condition until a local decline of temperature causes it to flash into steam, producing the powerful disturbance.
We agree to the notion that all such convulsions may not be referred to the same origin, and we have fancied that one of the prime causes is to be found in the gradual cooling of this planet, by which contraction sets in, squeezing the interior and forcing a displacement of particular portions of the earth’s surface. Attendant on such a fearful force as contraction, with its crushing and friction, is the development of local heat, sufficient to produce chemical action and to set in operation chemical and mechanical forces capable of producing the most violent convulsions of nature.
And if to this be added the notion that the bowels of the earth are still a molten mass of elementary substances, which, on being squeezed by the contraction of the earth’s surface, has a tendency to escape through the weakest point near at hand, we have a reasonable hypothesis consistent with many known facts. But yet the whole matter of earthquakes is involved in doubt, which science has not yet fathomed, and which, while opening a broad field of conjecture, still remain enwrapped in obscurity.
But whatever may be the real origin of these disturbances, it is convenient to regard the effect as proceeding from a sudden blow delivered under ground at some definite center. This center is termed the focus of the seismic force—although, indeed it may embrace so large an extent as to be more properly called the area of the seismic force rather than the focal point. From this seismic center vibrations radiate. Investigations made in regard to this focal area have led to different results. The point of disturbance producing the great earthquake at Naples in 1857 was found to be at a depth of five miles and three quarters; while similar investigations concerning the earthquake at Caschar, in India, in 1869, indicated the depth of the focal force to have been no less than thirty miles.
The velocities of the shocks also vary. That of the great Lisbon earthquake, in 1655 was about twenty miles a minute, or 1760 feet a second. That at Naples, in 1857, was only half so great. The transmission of a shock caused by an explosion of gunpowder in granite is 1657 feet a second; and in sand is only 825 feet a second.
The result of earthquakes is sometimes to elevate extensive tracts and at other times to depress; sometimes huge fissures are made in the surface and at other times great holes appear. Indeed, the variations are as numerous as the different circumstances that concur to effect the result.
One of the most destructive earthquakes on record was that at Caracas, in the northern part of South America, where twelve thousand persons perished in an instant, that beautiful city falling instantaneously in a mass of ruins.
In 1857, the earthquakes in the region around Naples reduced eight towns to ruins and destroyed between twenty and forty thousand lives.
Another memorable one happened at Quito, in South America, in 1859, involving vast loss of life.
But the most terrific was in 1755, at Lisbon, Portugal, when sixty thousand people were engulfed in a common grave.
The sea retired, leaving the bar dry, but returned in a huge wave fifty feet high. The mountains around were shaken with great violence, were rent in twain and thrown bodily into the valleys below. Great crowds rushed to the immense marble pier built out into the harbor, but in an instant the pier sank into the abyss of the sea like a ship foundering, and when the waters closed over the spot no fragments remained, no particle of the wreck was observed, and not a single body rose from the whirlpool that rushed with terrific force into the bowels of the earth. When the commotion subsided, over the spot was 600 feet of water, and far down in the furrows of the rocks and in chasms of unknown depth were held the remains of the mass of humanity that had perished in the catastrophe.
Article appeared in the Torchlight (Oxford Newspaper) on September 7, 1886
TERRIBLE EARTHQUAKE.
Nearly Half of United States Experiences the Shock
CHARLESTON IN RUINS.
Many People Wounded and Killed—Scenes Unparalled in this Country.
The eastern part of the United States experienced the most severe earthquake shocks in the history of our country last Tuesday night. They were felt as far South as Jacksonville, Fla., as far North as New York and as far West as Chicago. The centre of the disturbance seems to have been at Summerville, South Carolina, a prosperous little village, which was almost totally destroyed. Charleston, twenty two miles from Summerville suffered terribly, two-thirds of the houses in the city being rendered uninhabitable. Nearly fifty persons were killed and more than a hundred wounded. Some buildings in Augusta, Columbia and Savannah, Georgia, were wrecked. The shock was less in force the further removed from Summerville.
While the earth quaked violently in every part of North Carolina, the damage was very slight. At Raleigh, Charlotte and Wilmington some chimneys were knocked down. It is reported that a house at High Point was demolished.
Charleston and Summerville were not heard from until a late hour Wednesday morning. Terrible rumors of the total annihilation of those two places were rife. Grave fears were entertained. Sunken roadbed prevented approach by railroad. Telegraphic communication was cut off until 9 o’clock, when one wire belonging to the Southern Telegraph Company was opened. Then came the dispatches outlining the work of destruction and giving heartrending accounts of the suffering of the people. The first telegrams were substantially as follows:
Charleston, SC, September 1—Shortly after 10 o’clock at night an earthquake of such violence as has never before been experienced in this city occurred. The whole city was shaken violently, causing a heavy loss of life and doing immense damage to property. The city is one mass of wreck. Streets are completely blocked with debris of ruined houses, telegraph poles, trees, wires, etc. Vehicles of any kind cannot be driven through the streets, while pedestrianism is both dangerous and difficult. The people have been in the dark since the occurrence of the first shock, wringing their hands and crying aloud to God to save them. Whole families passed the night huddled together in open spaces, some of them praying continuously and imploring divine intercession. Opinions differ as to the number of shocks which occurred. Some assert that there were only two, while others are positive that there were three. A great many insist that there were even more. However this may be, the first was the most severe and did the most damage.
At 8:25 precisely this morning another wave swept over the city. It was not destructive, all the destruction having been done at 9:55 last night. The city is a complete wreck. St. Michael’s Church and St. Phillip’s, two of the most historic churches in the city, are in ruins, so is the Hiberman Hall, the police station, and many other public buildings. Fully two –thirds of the residences in the city are uninhabitable, being wrecked either totally or partially. It is impossible at this time to give a correct estimate of the casualties. It is expected that between fifty and one hundred persons have been killed and several hundred wounded. At the time of the first shock fires broke out in two different places in the city. About twenty houses were destroyed by fire. Scarcely one hundred houses in the city are occupied at this time, the people being all encamped in the open places. All the stores are closed and a scarcity of provisions is feared—not from want of provisions, but because no one can be got to enter the stores to sell them.
There are not a half dozen tents in the city, and the women and children are experiencing great privations in consequence. As night approaches most heads of families are trying to construct tents out of bed sheets, spare awnings and any other material that comes to their hands. The sun is about to set on another night of horror for poor Charleston. Heaven only knows what it may bring forth. Without any other violent shock of earthquake it is calculated that at least three-fourths of the city will have to be rebuilt entirely if the houses are to be inhabited.
Columbia, SC, September 1. –Summerville, twenty-two miles from Charleston was nearly destroyed by an earthquake last night. The passenger train from Columbia to Charleston was thrown from the track near Summerville last night and the engineer and fireman killed. The passengers on the wrecked train and those on this morning’s train, including one lineman, have not yet reached Charleston.
We make the following extracts from a vivid description of earthquake written by one of the editors of the News-Courier:
“Then the long roll deepened and spread into an awful roar that seemed to pervade at once the troubled earth and the still air above the ground. The tremor was now a rude, rapid quiver that agitated the whole lofty, strong-walled building as though it was being shaken by the hand of an immeasurable power, with intent to tear its joints asunder and scatter its stones and bricks abroad, as a tree casts its o’er ripened fruit before the breath of the gale. There was no intermission in the vibration of the mighty subterranean engine. From the first to the last it was a continuous jar, only adding force at every moment, and as it approached, and reached the climax of its manifestation it seemed for a few terrible seconds that no work of human hands could possible survive the shock. The floors were heaving under foot, the surrounding walls and partitions visibly swayed to and fro, the crash of failing masses of stone and brick and mortar was heard overhead, and without the terrible roar filled the ears, and seemed to fill the mind and heart, dazing perception, bewildering thought, and for a few panting breaths, or while you held your breath in dreadful anticipation of immediate and cruel death, you felt that life was already past, and waited for the end as the victim with his head on the block awaits the fall of the uplifted axe.
It is not given to many men to look in the face of the destroyer and yet live, but it is little to say that the group of strong men who shunned the experience above faintly described will carry with them the recollection of that supreme moment to their dying day. A sudden rush was simultaneously made to endeavor to attain the open air and flee to a place of safety; but before the door was reached all reeled together to the tottering wall and stopped, feeling that hope was vain, that it was only a question of death within the building or without to be buried by the sinking roof or crushed by the toppling walls. The uproar slowly died away in seeming distance. The earth was still, and oh, the blessed relief of that stillness, but how rudely the stillness was broken. As we dashed down the stairway and out into the street already on every side arose the shrieks and cries of pain and fear, the prayers and wailings of terrified women and children, commingled with the hoarse shouts of excited men. Out in the street the air was filled to the height of the houses with a whitish cloud of dry, stifling dust from the lime and mortar and shattered masonry, which falling upon the pavement and stone roadway had been reduced to powder. Through this cloud, dense as fog, the gas-lights flickered dimly, shedding but little light, so that you stumbled at every step over the piles of brick or became entangled in the lines of telegraph wires that depended in every direction from their broken supports. On every side were hurrying forms of men and women bareheaded, partially dressed, some almost nude and many of whom were crazed with fear or excitement. Here a woman is supported, half fainting, in the arms of her husband, who vainly tries to soothe her, while he carries her into the open space at the street corner, where present safety seem assured; there a woman lies on the pavement with upturned face and outstretched limbs, and the crowd passes her by for the time, not pausing to see whether she be alive or dead.
Again, far along the street, and up from the alleys always that lead into it on either side, is heard that chorus of wailing and lamentation which, though it had not ceased, was scarcely noticed a moment before. It is a dreadful sound, the sound of helpless, horror-stricken humanity, old and young, the strong and the feeble alike, where all are so feeble, calling for help from their fellow creatures, and raising their anguished voices in petition to heaven for mercy, where no human aid could avail. It is not a scene to be forgotten when once it has been witnessed, and when the witness has shared all its danger, and feels all its agony.”
Charleston, SC, September 4—At 9:30 o’clock tonight another earthquake shock was felt in this city. The sensation today is the falling of a shower of pebbles. The first fall was at 7:30 o’clock this morning, and the second at about 11 o’clock. There are morsels of flint among them, and all are abrated and worn by the action of water.
City Assossor William A. Kelly says that the loss in Charleston by the earthquake will readily reach $10,000,000. The taxable property aggregates $22,000,000.
The earth around Charleston and Summerville is depressed and cracked in many places, and sand, mud and water are thrown from the fissures.
There are conflicting statements as to the origin of the earthquake disturbance, but it is purely guess work. Many scientists are making observations. An earthquake occurred in Greece August 28th, destroying three towns and killing 600 people, and it is thought it extended to this country, crossing the Atlantic Ocean in seventy two hours.
The latest news is to the effect that the citizens of Charleston are living outdoors in tents furnished by the US Government. Summerville is almost deserted.
EARTHQUAKES GENERALLY.
Of earthquakes, their causes, etc. the News-Observer says editorially:
Earthquakes have occurred from time immemorial and in all parts of the world, but violent and destructive movements of the earth’s crust have been confined, during the historical period, to certain belts or regions, while other regions have been visited only by moderate vibrations of the earth’s surface.
The regions where volcanoes are still active are liable to the former. Those countries, like the eastern parts of the United States, where there are no volcanoes, have not been known before this to have been involved in any but slight disturbances. In California they have been frequent, but usually not destructive. In Mexico frequent and destructive. In Spain, Greece, the islands of the Mediterranean, they have been terrible in their effects, and the same in regard to parts of South America; and there is reason to believe that parts of the Pacific Ocean are likewise to be embraced in the earthquake zone.
Before the year AD 1600, we have only occasional records of devastating earthquakes, but from AD 1606 to AD 1842, between 6,000 and 7,000 have been recorded.
In 1876 there were recorded 104. Before the opening of this century, they were not closely studied, but during the past forty years there has grown up a regular branch of scientific study pertaining to these convulsions, called by the scientists Seismology. But as yet no definite results have been attained in tracing their cause or origin. In general it is broadly stated that an earthquake is a vibratory motion propagated through the solid mass of the earth, much in the same way that sound is propagated by vibrations in the atmosphere. But the origin of the force remains undetermined. Probably several distinct causes should be recognized. Volcanic action is doubtless due to one of the causes that produce earthquakes; but volcanic action does not always accompany them. One hypothesis is that the interior of the earth is a liquid nucleus and the surface is but a thin crust covering it.
Waves generated in the liquid interior might produce the vibratory motion of the earth’s crust. This theory, however, is not held by some of the most intelligent physicists.
Some again suggest that the vibrating motion is imparted by the jar occasioned by a violent rupture being due to the expansion of deeply seated masses of mineral substances, consequent upon either increased or diminished temperature. Steam has always figured largely in such theories, it being supposed that water, finding its way through the earth’s crust, might reach highly heated rocks and remain in aa super-heated condition until a local decline of temperature causes it to flash into steam, producing the powerful disturbance.
We agree to the notion that all such convulsions may not be referred to the same origin, and we have fancied that one of the prime causes is to be found in the gradual cooling of this planet, by which contraction sets in, squeezing the interior and forcing a displacement of particular portions of the earth’s surface. Attendant on such a fearful force as contraction, with its crushing and friction, is the development of local heat, sufficient to produce chemical action and to set in operation chemical and mechanical forces capable of producing the most violent convulsions of nature.
And if to this be added the notion that the bowels of the earth are still a molten mass of elementary substances, which, on being squeezed by the contraction of the earth’s surface, has a tendency to escape through the weakest point near at hand, we have a reasonable hypothesis consistent with many known facts. But yet the whole matter of earthquakes is involved in doubt, which science has not yet fathomed, and which, while opening a broad field of conjecture, still remain enwrapped in obscurity.
But whatever may be the real origin of these disturbances, it is convenient to regard the effect as proceeding from a sudden blow delivered under ground at some definite center. This center is termed the focus of the seismic force—although, indeed it may embrace so large an extent as to be more properly called the area of the seismic force rather than the focal point. From this seismic center vibrations radiate. Investigations made in regard to this focal area have led to different results. The point of disturbance producing the great earthquake at Naples in 1857 was found to be at a depth of five miles and three quarters; while similar investigations concerning the earthquake at Caschar, in India, in 1869, indicated the depth of the focal force to have been no less than thirty miles.
The velocities of the shocks also vary. That of the great Lisbon earthquake, in 1655 was about twenty miles a minute, or 1760 feet a second. That at Naples, in 1857, was only half so great. The transmission of a shock caused by an explosion of gunpowder in granite is 1657 feet a second; and in sand is only 825 feet a second.
The result of earthquakes is sometimes to elevate extensive tracts and at other times to depress; sometimes huge fissures are made in the surface and at other times great holes appear. Indeed, the variations are as numerous as the different circumstances that concur to effect the result.
One of the most destructive earthquakes on record was that at Caracas, in the northern part of South America, where twelve thousand persons perished in an instant, that beautiful city falling instantaneously in a mass of ruins.
In 1857, the earthquakes in the region around Naples reduced eight towns to ruins and destroyed between twenty and forty thousand lives.
Another memorable one happened at Quito, in South America, in 1859, involving vast loss of life.
But the most terrific was in 1755, at Lisbon, Portugal, when sixty thousand people were engulfed in a common grave.
The sea retired, leaving the bar dry, but returned in a huge wave fifty feet high. The mountains around were shaken with great violence, were rent in twain and thrown bodily into the valleys below. Great crowds rushed to the immense marble pier built out into the harbor, but in an instant the pier sank into the abyss of the sea like a ship foundering, and when the waters closed over the spot no fragments remained, no particle of the wreck was observed, and not a single body rose from the whirlpool that rushed with terrific force into the bowels of the earth. When the commotion subsided, over the spot was 600 feet of water, and far down in the furrows of the rocks and in chasms of unknown depth were held the remains of the mass of humanity that had perished in the catastrophe.